


Until Your Rapture Falls to Pieces

by Fudgyokra



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [5]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Bargaining, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Mental Coercion, Rape/Non-con Elements, deal with the proverbial devil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-24 01:25:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16630253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fudgyokra/pseuds/Fudgyokra
Summary: This challenged his devotion, tore and bit at what few shreds of positive emotion he had left.





	Until Your Rapture Falls to Pieces

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amsves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amsves/gifts).



> ...as well as a Tumblr anon! Big thanks to britaisy (also on Tumblr) for the awesome plot idea! Prompt: You Said You Would Let Them Go!

 

 _You shouldn’t have bartered with a villain._ The thought pulsed in his head like a wound, but he couldn’t ignore it like he would a bruise or a scrape, even if the intense focus on it only made the pain worse.

Slade hooked his fingers around Jason’s chin. It wasn’t an unusual gesture, not since Talia al Ghul had dragged him from the Lazarus Pit and deposited him in the man’s care as a loyal, if unwilling, pupil. But this? This challenged his devotion, tore and bit at what few shreds of positive emotion he had left.

“You swore to me,” Jason said, blandly. It was as much an effort to convince the man he felt nothing as it was to keep his own voice steady. “You said you would let them go if I promised to stay on as your apprentice.”

As smoothly as could be, Slade returned, “I lied.”

Jason’s jaw flexed with a flash of anger at the nonchalance, but any budding thoughts of defiance disappeared once he looked back down at Dick and Tim, lying still in their chains until the latter started to shake off the drugs. Jason wondered if he was the first to awaken simply because he was small, or because he’d already had more practice being narcotized; either way, his chest ached, racked with guilt.

With the unwavering grip on his face, he has no choice but to watch the way the kid’s eyes flutter open, dart around to calculate, then shoot wide when they land on him and Slade. A slurred call of Jason’s name came out first. Slowly, after one long, burning look, Jason shut his eyes.

He felt instead of saw the gun being pressed into his hand, cold and unforgiving metal. “Pick one,” Slade commanded. “It’s your final test. The last thing you must do to prove that you belong to me.”

Jason knew it was useless, but he shook his head. “I can’t do that.”

Dick was waking up, aided by Tim thrashing against his back, and Jason knew by pure instinct that it meant his time was running out. Seconds ticked by so painfully he thought, in a moment of insanity, he could hear them. Like the sound of a watch, even if there wasn’t one around.

“You don’t have a choice.”

Not anymore. He shouldn’t have promised himself to Slade in the first place. Worse, shouldn’t have  _kept_ that promise. It didn’t matter now, not when all he’s known since the dawn of a new life has been Slade’s praises, Slade’s damnation, Slade’s voice. His hands, his tongue, and the rest of him. There wasn’t an inch of Jason’s body that didn’t already belong to his captor.

This was the last stretch of road left to travel to finish the job. There were no weaknesses before he let Dick Grayson back into his life, and then, slowly, over time, Tim Drake. It was foolish to hand pieces of his heart over when he knew it wasn’t his to begin with, but he’d done it anyway, and now he was going to pay the price.

He opened his eyes and pressed the barrel of the gun to his own temple. “What if I don’t give you the satisfaction?” he asked as he listened to Dick mutter profanity under his breath and start twisting in his bonds. Unlike with Tim, when his eyes met the forms of his captors and his pupils shrank in fear – in recognition, in dawning panic – the first name out of his mouth wasn’t Jason’s.

“Slade,” he hissed, like he  _knew_. Jason felt something twist in his chest. He didn’t want him to know, didn’t want him to see the way the man’s hand dragged from his chin to his throat, thumb resting on his bottom lip.

“Pick, now,” Slade demanded.

Dick made a face, trying to assess what he’d missed in his unconscious state. Tim came to his aid with a series of shaky words: “One of us is going to die.”

Slade, with a hum, swept a gloved hand down Jason’s front. Down past his chest armor, past the badge marking him, past his stomach, then his belt. Jason closed his eyes again.

Delivered in a carefully-leveled baritone, the answer to his earlier question finally came: “If you off yourself, I’ll take both of them in your place.” His guts churned at that.

Dick had wide eyes trained on the movements of Slade’s hand, where it was cupping Jason through his pants in a grotesque display of ownership that sent a burn of shame through his entire body.

Tim was face-down, forehead pressed to the cold tile of the roof. To anyone else, it might have looked like he’d given up hope, but Jason could see plainly the way nimble hands steadily worked at the lock to his binds. In a foolish bid for more time, he looked over at Slade. “And if I don’t shoot anyone?”

“My answer remains the same.”

“Jason,  _no_ ,” Dick begged. “You can step away. You’re better than this.”

“No,” Slade answered for him, calmly, smugly. He took Jason’s chin in his hand again and leaned in like he might have been entertaining the idea to kiss him. “He really isn’t. Are you, pet?”

Like hypnosis, the touch reminded Jason why he was alive, who he worked for, who  _owned_ him. It may have been with a jolt of nausea that he realized it, but he couldn’t risk what he already had for what he never would, not wholly. “No,” he admitted, and the emotion it dredged up must have been enough to catch Tim’s attention, because he snapped his head up to look. His breaths were ragged, audible even past the brisk Gotham wind.

Jason thought about weakness and all the stupid, useless  _love_ left in what was veritably his corpse. If there was ever a chance at rebirth, it only made sense to take it, right? To get rid of the biggest threat, the one who says Slade’s name with a special brand of bitterness and watches his hands creep over Jason’s hips like he knows why they’re there and pities him for it. Well, he didn’t want that pity; didn’t want him to dive through the city every night thinking about how Jason might be confined to a bed somewhere, submitting to a threat he’d long since stopped fighting against.

He aimed the gun at Dick’s head and pulled the trigger. The hammer clicked, thrumming uselessly when presented with an empty chamber, no bullet to propel. Tim opened his mouth and made a broken sobbing sound that drove the ache in Jason’s chest deeper. Dick’s eyes were sad, but not shocked. That hurt worse.

Slade laughed. Low, cruel. “See? I told you I’d let them go. And shouldn’t you trust me by now, pet?” He shook Jason’s wrist until the gun clattered to the cement, then jerked him a step closer.

_You shouldn’t have bartered with a villain._

“Congratulations,” the man said, with a predatory curl of his lips that Jason could feel against the shell of his ear. “You passed. And you know what that means?” A satisfied hum, then, “You’re mine for good.”


End file.
